Japanese Men Share Their Worst Christmas Experiences Ever: Pikachu, Platoon and Painkillers

So this is Christmas. The time where we all sip eggnog by the open fire enjoying the gentle blanket of wet snow covering a meadow as a deer scampers by, right?

Of course not, it’s raining here now and my glasses are broken. Still, I’d consider this an average holiday season for myself. For many out there, Santa has little more than a big bag of suck to stuff in your stocking.

Don’t sweat it though. Every year can’t be a winner. For those having a blue Christmas, the website MyNavi has compiled a list of Japanese men’s worst Chirstmas experiences.

First up are some tales of people who’ve had a lonesome Chirstmas:

“I just played Pokémon the whole time.”

“I binged out on KFC by myself.”

“I went to the theater by myself to see a war movie.”

“Nobody invited me to a Christmas party, so I went to the store near my university and bought enough food for two people. Then I went back to my lab and ate it all, sad and alone.”

Okay, I know what a lot of (if not all) guys out there are thinking.

With the exception of the fourth response, playing Pokémon while eating fried chicken and taking a time-out to watch Black Hawk Down sounds more like an awesome Christmas than a terrible one. So what gives?!

It should be noted that Christmas in Japan is about 25% like a Western Christmas and 75% like Valentine’s Day. In fact, I’d argue that a Japanese Christmas is more like Valentine’s Day than a Japanese Valentine’s Day is.

December 24th or 25th are the days that young Japanese men and women meet to go on dates, eat fried chicken, see a movie, and (if they’re lucky) go to Disneyland.

In this context, consider these examples of some chronically single guys getting together and sharing their yuletide grief:

“Me and another guy got some fried chicken and played video games.”

“I went to a gathering of guys without girlfriends, we just got drunk and bitched about Christmas the whole time.”

So now you can see where these stories are going. Let’s continue with some tales of heartbreak and romance gone wrong:

“I dropped my mobile phone and lost it. I had no way of contacting my date.”

“While on a date I drove my car into a wall.”

“I was dumped and had to walk home an hour in the snow.”

“I saw a girl I had a crush on walking with her boyfriend.”

“I found out my girlfriend was sleeping with another guy.”

“I discovered that while I was at work my girlfriend was hooking up with another guy. I called her on it and she said ‘I’ve grown to love him’ which ended things right there.”

“We went to Disneyland. Then we had a huge fight and broke up in the magic kingdom.”

“I was planning to meet my girlfriend but she cancelled at the last minute. Soon after, she broke up with me over the phone.”

Although most had, not all responses were tales of infidelity and awkward auto collisions. For some, the pain in their heart was not figurative.

“While leaving my part-time job on Christmas Day I was injured and had to be rushed to hospital.”

“I had injured myself and the surgery was scheduled for Christmas. The whole day was an excruciating hell of pain.”

“I spent the day with the flu. I asked my girlfriend to take care of me and she did. Then she caught it too.”

So there you go; a cruddy Christmas can happen anytime, anywhere. For most Japanese men it seemed being alone was the most common complaint. In that sense perhaps the guys who go screwed over by their girlfriends came out the best?

You can’t have a really great Christmas without taking some crap along the way. So while playing Pokémon all day is comfortable, it’s not likely to get any better!

It reminds me of that Bible passage, “Ye taketh of thyne own good and Ye taketh of thyne own bad. Thus henceforth, this shall beknownst to all as the facts of life… the facts of life. Amen.” (Tootie 14:65)